Third graders can learn proper and common nouns through activities

November 10, 2011

English language can be understood only when a person has a strong understanding of grammar. Students begin to learn the parts of the speech with nouns. By the time students reach the third grade they should be capable of identifying the difference between the proper and the common nouns. A proper noun is specific and consists of a name of a person, place animal or a thing that are capitalized whereas a common noun is non-specific and describes the class of entities like city, boys, person etc.

Some activities for the third graders:

Activity – ‘You may be Next’: You can ask the students to form a circle. You can ask one of the students to come forward and begin the game by naming a common noun and further calling out the name of another student. The student whose name has been called out needs to respond by calling out a proper noun. If the student calls out correctly, he stays in the game and can continue calling the name of another student. On the contrary if the student is wrong, then he has to sit and cannot participate any further. Continue this game till you find only one student standing.

Activity – ‘Think fast’: You can call out a common noun in the class like “people”. Now you need to set the timer for a span of 1 minute. Now you can ask the students to pen down as many proper nouns as possible within the stipulated time. This game can be played in teams and the team scoring the highest score wins.

Activity – ‘In the Bag’: You can write proper and common nouns on pieces of paper and keep them in a bag. Ask each student to draw a piece of paper from the bag and identify the category of the noun looking at the word. Once the students are done with it ask each and every student to go to the board and write the respective common noun and proper noun for the word.

Activity-‘Tic Tac Toe’: You can use Smart Board games like Tic Tac Toe to have a group activity. You need to divide the class into different groups and ask them to identify common and proper nouns in the game. Once the answer of the student is correct, the team’s marker has to be placed in the grid on the board.